3/25/2016
Reed Hollinshead
ITD Communication
208-334-8881
reed.hollinshead@itd.idaho.gov
McKinnon named child passenger safety coordinator for Idaho
BOISE -- Children who are motor vehicle passengers have a new statewide champion. Carma McKinnon, from Carmen, Idaho, was recently selected to lead Idaho’s child passenger safety efforts.
(Download a picture of Carma McKinnon)
As the program’s new coordinator, she will provide
centralized leadership, support and oversight of Idaho’s child passenger safety
program, which will be hosted by Lemhi County. The program will provide for
consistent training of CPS technicians and instructors, and for car seat check
opportunities statewide.
“I am looking
forward to the challenges that this opportunity brings,” said McKinnon. “I
believe that if all Idahoans work together, we can build a strong statewide
child passenger safety program that everyone will benefit from. Especially
Idaho’s little ones.”
McKinnon spent 14 years working with St. Luke’s Safe Kids
Magic Valley as their child passenger safety instructor and for the last two
years as the Safe Kids coordinator. She became a national certified car seat
technician in 1992. In 2000, she became a certified instructor in child
passenger safety, and in 2002 she was certified in special needs car seats. She
has been actively involved in injury prevention for more than 20 years.
“The purpose for centralizing the state’s child passenger
safety leadership is to make the CPS program statewide, and ensure the
program’s focus is about educating all Idahoans – including law enforcement –
about ensuring children are restrained properly in vehicles,” said Sherry
Jenkins, with Idaho Transportation Department’s Office of Highway Safety.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for
children age 4 and ages 11-14, according to data from the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The research goes on to show that
effective child safety seats reduce fatal injury by 71 percent for infants and
by 54 percent for toddlers, ages 1 to 4 years old.
From 2010 to 2014, 21 children under 7 years old were killed
in Idaho motor vehicle crashes. Of these children, 11 were not restrained.
During the same period, 66 children were seriously injured; 41 of whom were not
restrained. An additional 415 children were visibly injured; 140 of whom were
not restrained.
Parents continue to place very young children, infant to age
3, in a child seat at a high rate of 94 percent, but only 62 percent of parents
place their toddlers (ages 4 to 6) in child safety seats or booster seats.